The BICEP2 collaboration reports the detection of B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background—a signal that might originate from gravitational waves created by inflation during the very earliest moments in the evolution of our Universe.

The insights of a provocative connection between general relativity and quantum field theory, called the AdS/CFT correspondence, have been extended to rotating black holes that can occur astrophysically.

New results from the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, the most precise to date in the energy range 20GeV to 1TeV, should help resolve whether cosmic rays composed of the lightest charged particles, i.e., electrons and positrons, come from dark matter or some other astrophysical source.

Many cosmologists believe that antiprotons in cosmic rays come from the annihilation of dark matter. Data from the PAMELA experiment on board a Russian satellite provide an important test of this possibility.

Forty years ago, it was predicted that there would be a sharp cutoff in the intensity of the very-high-energy cosmic rays that strike the earth’s surface. Two collaborations—the HiRes and Auger telescopes—are providing compelling evidence for this so-called “GZK effect.”